At Eridu--Enlil, god of earth who was later succeeded by
Marduk, and his wife Damkina. Marduk was their son.

Other gods included: Sin, the moon god; Ningal, wife of
Sin; Ishtar, the fertility goddess and her husband Tammuz; Allatu, goddess of the
underworld ocean; Nabu, the patron of science/learning and Nusku, god of fire.

Canaanite Pantheon

The Canaanites borrowed heavily from the Assyrians.
According to Ugaritic literature, the Canaanite pantheon was headed by El, the creator
god, whose wife was Asherah. Their offspring was Baal, who married Anath (The OT indicates
that Ashtoreth, a.k.a. Ishtar, was Baal's wife). Dagon, Resheph, Shulman, Koshar and Mot
were other gods of this pantheon. The cultic practices included animal sacrifices at high
places; sacred groves, trees or carved wooden images of Asherah. Divination, snake worship
and ritual prostitution were practiced. Sexual rites were supposed to ensure fertility of
people, animals and lands.

Egyptian religion was never unified. Typically deities were
prominent by locale. Only priests worshipped in the temples of the great gods. Only when
the gods were on parade did the populace get to worship them. These 'great gods' were
treated like human kings by the priesthood: awakened in the morning with song; washed and
dressed the image; served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The cults of Ra and Osiris, his
sister/wife Isis and son Horus[3]
were as close to a national religion as it got. Typically families worshipped
household gods.

Essentially Egyptian religion involved the worship of
nature dieties. Anubis was a jackal god; Sobk a crocodile god; Horus & Ra were
associated with the falcon; Thoth was associated with an ibis and connected with wisdom
& the moon; Ma 'et (a.k.a. Maat, the daughter of Re) the godess of truth, justice,
right & cosmic order; Nut the sky goddess; Shu the god of air; Nu the god of
primordial waters; Geb the god of earth; Osiris god of the realm of the dead, vegetation
and thus the rise of the Nile.

Kitchen believes it's unlikely that the exodus Hebrew's
were focused on the Apis bull cult of Memphis or the Mnevis bull cult of Heliopolis when
they charged Aaron to make them a god.[4]
Instead he believes there were bull cults associated with Horus in regions around
Gomer. These cults were associated with strength and fertility. Also, he suggests that the
close proximity to Caanan meant that these cults were probably similar to the Hadad (Baal)
worship there, which was also associated with the bull, strength and fertility.

Moabite Pantheon

The chief god was Chemosh (a.k.a. Athtar).

Philistine Pantheon (c.f. Canaanite Pantheon)

Gaza and Ashdod--the chief god was Dagon

Ashkelon--Ashtoreth

Ekron--Baalzebub

Syrian Pantheon (c.f. Canaanite Pantheon)

Ben-hadad

Alphabetic listings:

Anath

Sister and wife of Baal

Goddess of fertility and war

"...she smote and slew from seacoast (west) to
sunrise.....she waded in blood up to her knees-nay, up to her neck. 'Her liver swelled
with laughter; her heart was full of joy.' She then washed her hands in gore and proceeded
to other occupations."[5]

Her cult object was the Asherah or Asherah pole
which was a tree, grove or tree-like stylized pole; the pole may have been a tree trunk
with branches or perhaps phallic

She was likely borrowed from Assyria where she was the wife
of the war god Asir, hence the city and people Assyria; in Assyria Ashera and Ashtoreth
(an epithet of Ishtar) were the same person but these were distinguished in Caanan.

derived from Babylonian religion (Ishtar); an androgynous
deity but a femine deity in Caanan.

sister of Baal and Anath

goddess of sex and war; though the war role may've been
dropped by the Caananites

associated with religious prostitution

Chief female deity of the Phoenicians and Canaanites

Jezebel's father was an Astarte priest

Baal

lit. master, owner, husband;

this may be a title rather than a proper name because it is
applied as a title to Hadad, the Amorite storm god whose cult object is the bull from
3000-1500 BC; it is equated with the Egyptian god, Seth in other texts and certain of the
practices associated with Molech worship[7] are correlated with Baal worship in the
Torah (see Jer.19:5)

he is sometimes portrayed as in conflict with a flood
monster called Rahab or Leviathan.[9]

Jezebel was part of the Baal-melqart cult of which her
father was a priest. Melqart (lit. king city or city king)

He is sometimes portrayed as at odds with his mother,
Asherah; at other times as in league with her through bribery (Baal and Anath bribe
Asherah with gold and silver to intervene before El) and at other times she attempts to
seduce her son

Baal-zebub

lit. lord, prince or possible lord of the flies

god of the Philistine city, Ekron

Bel

see Marduk

the Babylonian sun god

son of Ea

in OT he is associated with Nebo (Isa.46:1) and Marduk
(Jer.50:2; 51:44)

Chemosh

the name or title of the chief god of the Moabites
(Nu.21:29/Jer.48:46)

child sacrifice is associated with him (2Ki.3:27)

Solomon built a sanctuary to him (2Ki.11:7)

he is equated with Ashtar in some texts

he is equated with Molech/Milcom b/c that was the Ammonite
god and yet Jephthath says Chemosh was the chief god...Molech may be a title for Chemosh
rather than a proper name.

Dagon

a grain god

most associated with the Philistines in the OT

in Canaanite beliefs he was one of the offspring of El and
Asherah

References to his priests are, those who leap over the
threshold, because that tradition followed Yahweh toppling a Philistine Dagon onto the
threshold of his own temple (1Sam.4-5)(see Zeph.1:9).

Day Star

lit. bright one

could be a title for the king of Babylon

could be Satan, based on Luke 10:18 (c.f. Isa.14:15)

could refer to a deity (Ashtar--venus) that was supposed to
occupy Baal's throne during the dry season but was too small to occupy it and had to
descend.

Hadad

lit. thunderer

a.k.a. Adad, Addu, Haddu, Had, Rimmon and Teshub

originally this was Baal's proper name

the bull was his cultic object

he was worshipped at Damascus under the title
"Baal" (2Ki.5:18)

Kiyyun

a.k.a. Kaiwan or Rompha

See Amos 5:26

A Babylonian deity

Associated with the planet Saturn

The Hebrews deliberately misspelled the names of other Gods
to demean them and so it is often difficult to correlate the Hebrew use of a god's name
with the name used by another culture.

Lilith

lit. night hag or screech owl (Isa.34:14)

associated with a child stealing witch

associated with carrion fowl

Marduk

a.k.a. Bel, Merodach

See 2Ki.25:27, Isa.39:1 and Jer. 52:31

the chief Babylonian god

foremost son of Ea

victorious over flooding after the destruction of Tiamat
(c.f. Baal; see Waltke's account of the Akkadian creation myth in Creation and Chaos)

Molech

A fire cult originating in Phoenicia (c.f. Tyre)

may be a title for Chemosh

a.k.a. Milcom (2Ki.11:7, Heb.11:33, 2 Ki.23:13)

he may have been an astral deity (c.f. Zeph.1:5)

Child sacrifices offered to Molech in connection with vows
and solemn promises[10] .

Children were thrown alive into the red hot arms of a Molech
image, thus to die[11] .

In the days of the divided kingdom a site for this practice
was established outside Jerusalem in the Hinnom valley, called Topheth. This was destroyed
by Josiah, great grandson of Manassah[12]

[9] Leviathan and
Rahab are the same being; this mythical creature is identical with the Canaanite 7-headed
dragon Lotan. Waltke's summary of research in this area, Creation and Chaos, makes
it clear that the biblical references are not granting the existence of such a creature
rather they illustrate in a typical Hebrew poetry that God alone is God. Return to Text

[11] A temple at
Amman (1400-1250 B.C.) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessey, Palestine
Exploration Quarterly (1966), p. 162, writes, "Two outstanding features
associated with the use of the temple were the enormous quantities of animal, bird and
human bones and the abundant evidence of fire...There can be little doubt that the temple
was associated with a fire cult." In a private communication with G.J. Wenham he
wrote that "At least 75% of them (the bones found) belong to children between the
ages of 3 and 14, or thereabouts. Return to Text

[12] Manassah
probably did more to restore these practices than anyone after his father's death (i.e.
Hezekiah) see Isa.30:33. Return to Text